About AFCM

Americans for Free Choice in Medicine (AFCM) is a national non-profit, non-partisan educational organization.

AFCM promotes the philosophy of individual rights, personal responsibility and free market economics in the health care industry. AFCM advocates a full, free market health care system by promoting health savings accounts (HSAs), tax equity for the individual, and AFCM teaches the history of HMOs, which were instituted by a long, incremental process of government intervention.

AFCM sponsors educational programs, lectures and town hall meetings for the public. Membership grades begin at $40 per year and may be tax-deductible.

Richard E. Ralston has been Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine since joining the part-time staff of AFCM in 2002. His letters and columns written in support of individual rights and personal choice in health-care policy have since been published in dozens of major newspapers in the United States.

After serving seven years in the U.S. Army, Mr. Ralston completed an M.A. in International Relations at the University of Southern California in 1977. He then began a career in newspaper publishing and direct marketing. He has been the circulation director and publishing director of The Christian Science Monitor, a radio producer, a national television news business manager, and a book publisher. As an independent direct marketing consultant, his clients included IBM, British Airways, CNN, and the Los Angeles Times. His book Communism: Its Rise and Fall in the 20th Century was published in 1991. He edited the book Why Businessmen Need Philosophy in 1999, and was the revision editor of two books by Ayn Rand in 2005: Three Plays and The Early Ayn Rand. Mr. Ralston has contributed essays to several books about the novels of Ayn Rand. He is the Publishing Manager of the Ayn Rand Institute.

AFCM is funded by private donations, which are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Join AFCM and be a part of the crusade for individual rights.